The Sawyer House hotel was lit by stoneware torches with five-foot open flames. At least they looked like flames. Durwood supposed they could be kerosene or gussied-up LEDs.

He parked the Vanagon, under a darkening sky, in spitting distance of a Lexus and two Mercedes-Benzes. Hippo nosing in for a drink next to flamingos.

Inside the lobby, Durwood encountered his old friend: the foreman.

"They figured you might come back, looking for trouble," said the neckless man.

Durwood tipped his head to the foreman's swollen purple lip. "And they put you on security? Must not be smart as they're cracked up to be."

The foreman scratched at the back of his buzzcut. "This hotel is private. Private—for guests. Are you a guest here?"

"I'm at the motel over town."

"Then clear off. You've got no business on the premises."

He made a move to usher Durwood out. When the ex-marine's face hardened, he stopped short of making contact.

Durwood asked, "Who's paying you to be here? Are you protecting Chester Lyles or the lawyer and banker-folks?"

The foreman started to answer, then puffed up. "I don't have to tell you. I don't have to tell you a thing, you got no authority over me."

Durwood said, "There's different kinds of authority."

He crossed one wrist over the other. They stared at each other, Durwood's steel-gray eyes level and without concern. The foreman kept picking up and putting down his feet, like he was standing on a warming griddle.

Durwood said, "You're on the wrong side. Lyles and the lawyers, they're carving this town up like a Thanksgiving bird with gravy."

He told briefly of Fitzgerald, Combs, and Doucey's involvement in the lawsuits.

"You lie," the foreman spat.

But there was a quiver between his eyes, there at the bridge of his nose.

Durwood walked past to the elevator bank, leaving the foreman with his doubts.

Durwood pushed Up and waited. Between the cars, water trickled down a glass pane into a bed of shiny pebbles. The pebbles black and white. Some water sculpture. He couldn't tell if the water was behind or in front of the glass. Maybe you weren't supposed to know. Maybe it was supposed to be thought-provoking.

The elevator dinged. Durwood boarded and pressed the button for Fifteen: top floor.

Penthouse.

He thought as the quiet motor carried him up. By now, the foreman would be calling in backup or alerting Chester Lyles. That was fine. Durwood didn't intend a long visit.

The car stopped. The doors split. Durwood stepped off.

He walked the hall, slapping doors with his palm. Whether they were lawyers' or bankers' rooms, vacant or occupied, he didn't know.

"You're dirty," he called. "This deal is rigged, it's bogus—and I'll prove it. The game's up, ladies and gentlemen."

Through the doors, he heard stirring within the rooms. Hushed exchanges. Deadbolts engaging. The clatter of remotes or room-service forks being dropped.

Room 1547 sat at the west end of the floor. Above the printed number was a gold placard that read, The Chickasaw Suite.

Durwood knocked.

He said, "Rudyard Raines, Sybil Fitzgerald—whatever honcho's holed up in here. There's questions you need to answer."

He changed his knock to a bang, using the flat part of one fist.

A woman's voice: "Please leave—leave now. I'm quite certain the hotel does not allow solicitation."

"I'm no solicitor," Durwood answer through the door. "I'm Durwood Oak Jones."

He couldn't know, but the scrambling inside sounded like sheets flapping and feet scurrying over hardwood.

Durwood waited a minute, then said, "I'm still here."

Another minute.

"Not going anywhere till I ask my questions."

Eventually Sybil Fitzgerald opened the door.

In his work with Quaid Rafferty and Third Chance Enterprises, Durwood had seen his share of snazzy hotel rooms. The all-glass suite in Reykjavik where Morfran Güice had aerified his death serum. Fabienne Rivard's spinning basement lair in Monte Carlo where the remaining monarchs of Europe schemed to reassert dominion over the Continent.

He'd seen robot chefs, cryogenic safes, trap doors made to look like Egyptian rugs. The whole nine.

The Chickasaw Suite was in that neighborhood. Chandelier twelve feet across. Canopy bed with a silk bedspread—folded under itself on one side. Laser net below the ceiling, security of some sort. Painting with black and pink splotches which looked like an accident in the Valspar aisle of Home Depot to Durwood, but he figured must be serious art.

"Stuffy in here," Durwood said.

The lawyer kicked one heel behind the opposite calf. She wasn't wearing hose. "We're in Texas. It's humid."

She gestured outside. It'd started raining.

Durwood eyed a digital panel on the far wall. "The engineers licked that one, climate control. It's something else."

He ignored Sybil Fitzgerald's glare and strode into the room. A briefcase leaned against the spiral staircase leading to the loft. Women's suitcoats hung croked over Louis XVI chairs. A shoe hid under the clawfoot whirlpool tub—freestanding on ivory tile.

"Let the record reflect you were not invited in," Sybil Fitzgerald said. "My failure to alert the authorities immediately doesn't constitute consent to this unlawful intrusion."

Durwood wandered over to the bed.

Sybil Fitzgerald crossed her arms, which looked strong like welded wire.

She cleared her throat.

Durwood faced her. "Ma'am?"

She rolled her eyes at the formality. "Leave now, Mr. Jones. Leave now and perhaps you'll sleep somewhere besides jail tonight."

Durwood asked what the hotel's nightly rate was.

"The firm gets it at the monthly rate," Sybil Fitzgerald said. "Eight per night."

"Eight..."

"Hundred." She ran two fingers through her hair, making one of its silver streaks disappear. "Quite reasonable compared to what clients pay to accommodate me in larger cities."

Hanging near the thermostat was some certificate bearing Texas seal. Durwood read from it.

"'Hotel license granted to Rainey Properties, LLC.'" He stroked his chin. "How common a last name is Rainey?"

Sybil hadn't moved from the door.

"The city had trouble finding local investors. Rudyard generously stepped in with funds to ensure this lovely facility got built."

"Real generous of him. So you pay him eight hundred a night, plus your lackeys' rooms, then pass the bill right off to Hogan?"

The lawyer didn't answer.

Durwood circled the bed. Its canopy had velvet ropes, hung every few feet with a gold-embroidered button. His boot landed harder with each step.

Sybil Fitzgerald whipped out her cellphone. "You've been given ample opportunity to vacate, Mr. Jones. It's time for the police."

The place had a half-dozen closets. Durwood approached the one closest to the bed. The one accordion door didn't stand flush. Durwood tipped his head, the way Sue-Ann might coming up on a pheasant nest buried in weeds.

Except Sue kept her cool in such situations—and Durwood felt a growing fury.

He gripped the curlicue handle and yanked the door clear off its track.

Chester Lyles stood among Sybil Fitzgerald's hanging clothes. Shirtless. Knees pinched together. Handcuffed, a studded collar around his neck.

The Chief Operating Officer of Hogan Consolidated screeched, "Get the hell away! You're trespassing!"

Durwood felt a thick physical revulsion at the man, the sissy. At what this meant for Hogan and Chickasaw.

He turned away and pointed to Sybil Fitzgerald's left ring finger. "Wedding vows don't mean much to you, do they?"

She put away her phone with a snort. "My husband is the executive director of the American Red Cross. He's on the road forty weeks a year, like me."

"Partners," Durwood said, "like the Clintons. Hillary and ole Bill."

Chester Lyles, red-faced, shuffled out of the closet and over to his lover. Held out his wrists to get the cuffs undone.

Sybil Fitzgerald, with a touch of contempt, found a key in her pocket and freed him.

Lyles immediately found his own phone in a pair of slacks and made a call.

"Damnit Steve!" he roared. "How did he get up here? How'd you let him pass..."

As he laid into the foreman, Durwood the person who clearly called the shots: Sybil Fitzgerald.

"I know about the price-fixing lawsuit," he said. "And the antitrust one. And that nonsense about false advertising."

She turned his look right around, darker than a crow waiting on a branch. The patter of rain outside was steady now.

In a low voice her boy-toy couldn't hear, Sybil Fitzgerald said, "You're wading into matters you have no ability to comprehend, Mr. Jones."

"No argument there," Durwood said. "But there's other folks that may. Government types. Reporters."

Chester Lyles was back in clothes and off his phone. "If this gets out, I'm suing you for every penny you're worth, you...vigilante! I have a reputation! If this gets out, if anyone hears you—er, how I—"

"Your underwear." Durwood pointed at some lace panties that'd fallen out of the jumble by the bed. "Don't leave your underthings behind now."

"Those aren't mine!" Chester Lyles said. "What do you think, I'm some...some kinda..."

"Yes," Durwood said. "I do."

Sybil Fitzgerald smirked and gave him a saucy look, glancing down yonder.

If those underwear don't belong to Lyles, I guess she's feeling a breeze.

Saucy or not, she wasn't playful with her next words. "This is a grave miscalculation on your part. Fitzgerald, Combs, and Doucey has done nothing extralegal here. Every case you referenced took place out in the open, with free and full disclosure. There is nothing to expose—all of this is public."

Durwood said, "There's disclosing on forms, with some government clerk. Then there's folks taking a closer look. Seeing the whole."

Sybil Fitzgerald spread her arms wide. "We're happy to wage that discussion in the court of public opinion. I have entire teams of messaging pros ready to rock at my word."

Durwood felt his righteous vigor—the feelings that'd gotten him up here slapping doors—wane. Every word out of the lawyer's mouth seemed to take a chip. She was a step ahead at every turn.

Carol Bridges had sad it: Just because we're in the right doesn't mean we'll prevail.

Durwood switched tactics. "Where you keep the files?"

The lawyer smirked, but not before something fluttered in her eyes. They'd flicked, for a millisecond, toward the divan.

Divan's usually have freestanding legs. Often bowed. Sometimes claw foot.

Not this one. This one, whose plush fabric was of a piece with the rest, had a wood skirt going all the way to the floor.

Durwood walked there. The divan's bottom had no handles, but when he tapped it with his boot, it felt hollow.

Durwood tossed the throw pillows away.

"Hey!" Chester Lyles said.

Durwood stomped through the bench wood. The heel of his boot was stopped by a box of files.

The box was black.

Lyles said, "You can't look in there, that's our files. We're protected by client privilege!"

Durwood reached inside to pull out the box. He saw a second box. The second box was plain, uncolored.

Now which did Gomez say was dirty?

Probably the black. Durwood started pulling the lid off that box when he felt hands on his shoulder. He peeked back.

The foreman.

Durwood kicked him ten yards, dropping the man into a sit against the bed.

The first folder's tab was labeled Billable Hours_Delaney. Durwood removed a stack of documents and flipped through.

His temples pulsed. Veins stood out in his forearms. He couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Durwood willed himself to understand, but too many things were pressing on him. Carol Bridges's warnings. Sue-Ann waiting back at the motel. Clauses and figures and words too damn long.

He closed his eyes. In the darkness, in the pounding rain outside, his mind did clear. He remembered what he needed: evidence that Fitzgerald, Combs, and Doucey was behind these bogus personal injury lawsuits.

This was crossing lines. Many. Durwood told himself the evidence he'd find—even if it was just the overcharging—justified the means.

A riot of feet poured into the suite. At first, Durwood confused the noises with his own barbed thoughts. Then multiple hands ripped him away from the divan.

Eight uniformed police. Durwood flinched away and spun, crouched like a cornered gully cat.

Could he handle them? Likely he could. He looked into their faces. Their scared, angry faces.

No. He wouldn't fight them.

They were going to arrest him. He was going to jail.

—

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